Dem donors snub Hakeem Jeffries LA fundraisers over disappointment with Trump response

As House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries took a trip to a big-ticket fundraiser in Los Angeles, California, a number of celebrity donors chose to stay home rather than shore up funds to support the politician after having been disappointed by the Democratic Party's Trump response.

Over the past two months, a number of left-wing donors in Hollywood have held their pocketbooks, according to Deadline. One go-to donor for the party, a media producer, told the outlet regarding the fundraiser, “I’m not interested, skipping it."

The producer, who would traditionally go to the event hosted by left-wing activist Hope Warschaw on Wednesday, added, "The Democrats are all about the midterms, great. But that’s next year, they’re blowing it against Trump now. A lot of that is on Hakeem, Schumer, Pelosi and the rest of them." Tickets for the fundraiser were going for anywhere between $10,000 and $100,000, with proceeds going to the Jeffries Victory Fund, which is a source for funding used by other Democratic lawmakers.

“Why is there no plan, no strategy besides showing up on MSNBC?” another donor said. “Trump said what he was going to do, even if they thought only half of it could happen. They should’ve been prepared, they should [be] protecting people, vets, from Trump and [Elon] Musk."

According to the outlet, aside from the fundraiser, Jeffries is putting on a smaller exclusive dinner with some supporters, but some have even declined the invite to that event as well. Some donors are also frustrated and feel "betrayed" by the Kamala Harris 2024 campaign.

"They told us [Kamala] Harris was going to win, they told us they had the votes, and then they lost every single swing state,” a publicist that was in connection to the Harris campaign said. “We were lied too, or misinformed at best, and we got Trump again.”

The drama over the fundraiser comes after last week, where a division erupted in the Democrat Party when Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) voted to support a government funding bill backed by Trump and put together by the House GOP.

Multiple House Democrats were reportedly wanting to see Schumer primaried in his next Senate race. Schumer argued that it was better to fund the government and keep it open rather than have it shut down. Some Democrat senators followed suit, allowing for its passage, but many opposed Schumer as well as the funding bill.

Mathew Littman, who is a partner at HowLitt and leads a group of left-wing activists called The Working Group, told Deadline, "I think people in the entertainment industry are very, very frustrated by what is going on in DC."

“Instead of going after Elon Musk and Trump, who we should be calling out every day, we are going after Democrats," Littman said at event in Virginia last week referring to the divide in the Democrat Party.